For the last decade and a half, Rob Malda, aka CmdrTaco, has been the editor-in-chief of Slashdot.org, a large tech news portal that for many, including myself, is a mecca of sorts. Starting in the humble beginnings of a rundown house while in college, and growing into one of the top 10 visited sites on the internet, Slashdot (/. for us geeks) has become a daily destination for many millions of people.

Sad to see you go sir, but this world would be a very different place if you hadn’t done what you did. Best of luck from us at Naviwire, in whatever career path you pursue next.

Full story here.

From Cracked.com –

By my calculations, about 96 percent of all computer repairs are done, not by the local computer guy or the Geek Squad, but by The Friend Who is Good With Computers. Often that friend is nothing more than an average computer user who knows how to look up error messages on Google, but it doesn’t matter — once they become known as TFWIGWC, they will get the call every time something goes wrong. And they will fix it, probably for free, because TFWIGWC pities you.

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VR-Zone.com is reporting that PowerColor Sales Director, Elaine Liao, spilled the beans on AMD’s next-gen GPU release date. According to Elaine Liao, the first Radeon HD 7000 series cards are to be released in Q1 2012. Other reports still suggest a release date of Q4 2011, so we’ll let time sort this one out. More interestingly, Elaine Liao told reporters with DonanimHaber.com, that these next-gen GPU’s will feature a TSMC 40nm process, unlike the expected 28nm process we’ve been hearing about.

Read more at VR-Zone.com

Read more at DonanimHaber.com

Audio
Asus RoG Vulcan - KitGuru
Bowers & Wilkins C5 In-Ear Headphones - TechwareLabs
Speedlink Metis Wireless Headset - XSReviews
Thermaltake Spin Headset - Bjorn3D

Case
Cubitek XL Tank - OCC
NZXT Source 210 Elite - Benchmark Reviews
SilverStone Raven RV03 - PureOverclock
Thermaltake Level 10 GT - XtremeComputing

Cooling
AC Accelero TwinTurbo Pro - HardwareOverclock
Corsair H100 - Neoseeker
Dynatron Evolution - Technic3D
Gelid Solutions Rev2 Tranquillo - Legit Reviews

Memory
Exceleram EP3001A PC3-10666 - TechwareLabs
Patriot Viper Xtreme & Gamer 2 DDR3 - Legion Hardware

Motherboards
ASRock Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen3 - Pro-Clockers
ASUS Rampage III Black Edition - Neoseeker
ECS HDC-I - Hardware Secrets
Gigabyte Z68X-UD7-B3 - Hi Tech Legion
Sapphire Pure Platinum Z68 - PureOverclock
Sapphire Pure Platinum Z68 - KitGuru

Peripherals
Enermax Aurora Lite - Techgage
SteelSeries WoW Legendary Edition - HardwareHeaven
Thermaltake eSports Challenger - Legit Reviews
Tt eSports Meka - eTeknix

Portable/Mobile
Lenovo Idea Pad Tablet K1 - HotHardware
Mionix Zibal 60 - Tweaktown

Power Supplies
In Win Commander II 1200W - PureOverclock
Thermaltake TR2 800W - KitGuru

Storage
Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD - Bjorn3D
Plextor PX-128 M2S 128GB SSD - XSReviews
Strontium Matrix 120GB SSD - Tweaktown
WD Scorpio Blue 1TB - Legit Reviews
WD Scorpio Blue 1TB - Techgage

Video
ASUS ENGTX580 - OCC
ASUS MARS II GTX 580 - Tweaktown
ASUS MARS II GTX 580 - VR-Zone
ASUS MARS II GTX 580 - KitGuru
ASUS GTX 580 - PureOverclock

Cases: 

SilverStone Raven RV03 - PureOverclock

Memory/ Storage: 

Corsair Force GT SATA III 120GB SSD - Legit Reviews

Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD - Vortez

Hitachi UltraStar 7K3000 3TB SATA 3 HDD - RWLabs

Video: 

ZOTAC GTX580 3GB AMP2 SLI - Vortez

From Fudzilla.com -

Intel will release a firmware upgrade to fix a bug that causes its SSD 320 solid-state drives to fail in about two weeks. A few months ago, users reported problems in which a power loss caused Intel’s SSD 320 drives to crash and lose data .

When the system rebooted the BIOS reported the SSD as having only 8MB of storage capacity. Intel in late July acknowledged the bug, saying the problem had been isolated and that a firmware upgrade to fix the problem was on its way, though it did not provide a release date.

Apparently now it will be two weeks away and it has taken so long because Chipzilla wanted to make sure it worked.

Read the full story here

Starting with the Nehalem G6952 processor, Intel allowed users to upgrade their CPU by purchasing an “upgrade card”. Recently added to the list of CPU’s that can be “upgraded” without ever opening up the system, are the 2.6 GHz 2 core/2 thread G622, the 3.1 GHz 2 core/4 thread i3-2102, and the 2.1 GHz 2 core/4 thread i3-2312. The “upgrade card” works by going to Intel’s website, entering a pin provided on the card, and then downloading “special” software that unlocks disabled features like CPU cache, increases clock speed and or the CPU multiplier for faster performance. An upgrade card may be a great option for OEM/retail users that don’t want to risk voiding their warranty by opening up their computer, but for most users, the $50 price tag for a 15% performance increase won’t be worth it. We don’t have the exact clock speed increases from Intel, but you can read the press release here. 

From dailymail.co.uk - 

Matthew, who was born without his left hand, put his plan into action by writing to Ross Brawn, boss of F1 team Mercedes GP Petronas, asking for £35,000 to pay for a top-of-the range artificial one.

In return, the schoolboy said he would let the company sponsor the hand by putting the Mercedes logo on it – just like the adverts on F1 cars.

Rather than being put off by the precocious advance, Mercedes was touched by Matthew’s ‘intelligent and moving letter’ and agreed to help him raise the money he needed.

It also teamed up with prosthetics specialists Touch Bionics to create a customised i-LIMB Pulse – the most advanced technology of its type in the world.

The hand – strong enough to hold  a 14-stone load – is also so versatile that Matthew can grip a pen to draw pictures and write, tie his shoe laces and catch a ball.

Continue Reading This Article

We have posted our daily hardware roundup for today. Read more to get all the latest hardware reviews from around the Net!

The purpose of this guide is to give you, our valued reader, a quick easy-to-read index of the currently available Intel processors so that you can quickly see the most relevant aspects of a product and compare it to another product in the same class. This chart will change over time, and more information may be added/updated/deleted/moved to other charts as information changes.

Note: Due to Intel re-releasing and re-manufacturing certain releases of their processors, you will find that some product families have been sorted into multiple groups. This is due to varying Level 2, Level 3, or Bus Clock speeds. This is most clearly emphasized with the Core 2 Duo E6400 and E6420. Although the two chips have identical Bus and Clock speeds, the E6420 has double the Level 2 cache as the E6400, and thus belongs in a different performance segment.

Intel has never been known for good integrated graphics solutions. It appears that Intel’s future Haswell CPU (after Ivy Bridge), will feature Direct X 11.1 graphics, an improvement from Ivy Bridge’s Direct X 11. We will see Haswell in 2013, sporting Open GL 3.2+ support and the graphics core is codenamed  ”Denlow”. Coming in March or April of 2012, we will see “Carlow” on Ivy Bridge, boasting 16 execution units and  professional certification for sixteen graphics applications. 

With Intel slowly improving onboard solutions, AMD’s Fusion technology will certainly dominate in the integrated GPU market. Intel is clearly late to Direct X 11 and we hope they will start to show real improvements in the future.